Help needed with tenancy agreement

shopndrop

DS in rented property with 3 others, they have joint and several liability rental agreement for 12 months, 5 months remaining. One person has left and advised he will no longer be paying his share of the rent, although prior to him leaving he e mailed to say he would still pay his share. All 4 have tried to find a replacement tenant but with no success so far. What options, if any, are there that could be taken against the tenant who has left?
Does the Letting Agent have any responsibility to help them find another tenant?

Robert_Sterling_3

The remaining tenants have to pay the rent and try to get it back from the one who left.

robpitt

... and depending on the contract terms the one who left may be entitled to serve notice and end the tenancy for all.

shopndrop

robpitt wrote: »

... and depending on the contract terms the one who left may be entitled to serve notice and end the tenancy for all.

Could this still happen even though they signed a 12 month contract?

What sort of contract would it need to be for this to happen?

shopndrop

Have been reading through the contract and it is a common law tenancy agreement. Don't know if this makes any difference. There is also no escape clause in the contract.

princeofpounds

It can do shopndrop. Is the rent over 25k per year? Basically a common law tenancy agreement is only bound by its contractual terms and some limited statute, not all the AST legislation set out in the Housing Act. That applies both to T and L in terms of rights and obligations. It is automaticall one for high-rent properties, but I can't recall what happens if you are below 25k, whether it is automatically an AST anyway.

You can all pay and sue the leaving tenant using moneyclaimonline and the small claims court for the rent, personal costs, time and interest. The evidence you have that he agreed to pay makes it a slam dunk, assuming you haven't omitted anything really important.

He is #4 tenant right? It's important that he isn't #5+.

Letting agent is not responsible for anything. You are jointly liable for rent.

shopndrop

Thanks princeofpounds.
The rent is over £25k and there were a total of 4 tenants, now only 3.